One week from today.....the journey begins!

So, one week from today, we will finally meet our little man face-to-face!!! It still feels so surreal! The wait felt excruciating at times, and now here we are, just 4 days away from flying out!!!! Its hard to believe!

It would be awesome if all of you would really begin praying for Max. I've been thinking a lot about him and how hard this whole process may very well be. He's going to be taken from everything and everyone he's ever known, and it makes me sad to think that he'll be hurting for a while. I know our intentions are pure and our love for Max is beyond words, and hopefully he'll one day feel super blessed that God chose Stephen and I to be his dad and mom. But, for now I know he'll probably be pretty sad. So, if you all could just be praying that somehow God would begin to prepare his heart for this super huge transition!

Well guys, I've got about a million more things to accomplish but I'll be sure to keep you all posted! Thanks for journeying with us!

Sooooo close!!!

Hi everyone! I know I've been terrible about posting lately. Things have been hectic, and well...there's TONS to do! One of the things on our check list is to make the blog "private" so that we can abide by Thai law regarding posting pictures of their children online for public viewing. What we'll do is assign a login name and password to the blog and that way we can post all the pictures we want when we're in Thailand! I just can't wait to show him off! We'd love for everyone to journey along with us, so if you'd like the login info, please don't hesitate to email me at angela@kull.us and I'll get you the info as soon as everything is set up!

Tickets......check!!!!

Well, its official! We have our plane tickets! Departing St. Louis on October 12th and returning home on October 29th. We're stretching our trip out a bit, but we don't want to be rushed and want to have plenty of time to bond as a family of three before we head home to meet the rest of the crew! Still awaiting I-800 approval, but it should be any day now and we're definitely right on track for our October 20th board meeting! 35 days until we meet Max!!!!

44 days and counting!!!

We heard from our social worker in Thailand today, and she's got everything ready for us to meet Max on Friday, October 15th!!!! I love, love, love that we now have a date! Makes everything so much more real!!! We're planning to fly out from St. Louis on the 12th, arrive in Bangkok on the 13th, pick up Max on the 15th, and appear before the board on the 20th!!!!!!! We still haven't decided on our return date. We want to be sure to give ourselves plenty of time to complete all the paperwork we need. It would be better to have too much time, then not enough and have to change our flight back at the last minute!

We've been super busy moving this week. Yes, that's right...moving! Our current house is going to be rented and we're moving into a smaller place a few streets down (still with plenty of space for the three of us!). We've been really praying that some how God would guide our finances that I'd be able to stay home with Max as much as possible. Well boy did He move with this one! Not only will our current mortgage be paid in full each month by our renters, but our new rent will be only half our mortgage! Makes me so excited just thinking about the burden that has been lifted by this!

Our first priority in our new place is to get Max's room looking as awesome as possible!! My only "sadness" about leaving our house was that Max wasn't going to get to see the super cool room that Stephen and I had made for him. But, we're going to make this new room as similar to that as possible! We'll be sure to post pictures when its ready!

Happy Birthday Max!!!!!!

Today is our sweet little boy's third birthday! We were hoping to be with him for this special day, but we know the nannies at the babies' home are showering him with attention! We've decided to save Max's birthday party until we bring him home. That way he can have a blast opening all his gifts!

Can't wait to get our little man home. Six weeks and counting!!!!!!!!!

FINALLY!!!!

Well, I know its been forever since we've posted, but its just been months and months of waiting "patiently"!! All the prayers and all the waiting, and now here we are! Our final Thai documents came in the mail today, and we turned around and sent them on to the Immigration office an hour later. Its been taking the U.S. government about three weeks to the day to approve I-800's. If we're lucky and they take a little less time with ours, then we'll be traveling for the October 6th board meeting, if not....then we'll have to wait a little and travel for the October 20th board meeting. We'll need to leave for Thailand one week before the board meeting is scheduled, so even if we aren't able to attend a meeting until the 20th....we'll still be leaving in about six weeks! Holy cow!! After almost two years of waiting....we're down to just 4-6 weeks!!! I still can't quite believe it!

We'll be blogging lots now, as we get everything ready for bringing Max home. At some point soon, we'll need to make the blog "private" so that we can post pictures of Max, and still follow Thai rules. We'll likely just assign everyone the same password and login name. That way we can just email it out and that'll just make it easier.

Thank you all for your prayers and awesome support through our journey. Now comes the fun part!!!!

Merry CHRISTmas Max!!!

Oh holy cow, Max made out like a bandit this year!!! Stephen and I are beginning to think there's nothing left that we'll need to buy for him before he gets home! We spent a fabulous Christmas week in North Carolina with Stephen's parents and had a blast! Then we had my side of the family's Christmas on New Year's Day. Tons of fun!!!




As you can see from the pictures, Max got tons of clothes, books, toys, and lots of practical stuff too (that was by mom's request!!! socks, undershirts, sippy cups and a baby gate!)


Also, Max's awesome Aunt Rae-Rae made Max some wall art that perfectly matches his bedding!! We were super excited about those!
Its amazing to me how many people share our intense love of this perfect little boy that we've only met through pictures. Max is our son, without a doubt we are so in love with him. And the cool part is he is also a super loved grandson, great grandson, nephew and cousin!!! We are so blessed with such an incredible family.
And, a HUGE thank you to all our loved ones who went above and beyond this awesome holiday season and contributed to our adoption fund! We are so more than ready to bring this little guy home, and your help is beyond appreciated.
We love you all so much and hope you enjoy the pictures of all Max's new stuff! I can just picture him playing with all of it! Oh Lord, please make it soon!!!
Happy New Year to everyone......and may it be the year we bring Max home!!!